dontvsdorsWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: dont is a pronoun, dors is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“dont” is a pronoun and “dors” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#119
“dont” frequency rank
#5,748
“dors” frequency rank
5867
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dont dors
Definition De qui ; de quoi ; duquel ; de laquelle ; desquels , desquelles. Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de dormir.

Where the eye mixes dont and dors

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
dont
4 ch
dors

Visual trap between dont and dors

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dont is \dɔ̃\ while dors is \dɔʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5867, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dont is recorded at frequency rank #119, classified as apron, pronounced \dɔ̃\. dors is at rank #5,748, tagged as averb, pronounced \dɔʁ\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 5867, this pair ranks #427,840 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of dont vs dors

Shared letters: do. Private to "dont": nt. Private to "dors": rs.

"dont" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "dors" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dontddont · dnot · donnt · dontt · dotn · odnt
  • dorsddors · dorrs · dorss · dosr · dros · odrs

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "dont" and "dors" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dont" is a pronoun and "dors" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "dont" or "dors"?
"dont" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #119 in our French list, against #5,748 for "dors". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dont" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dors" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #427,840 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dont" and "dors" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "domi vs dors". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #427,840 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list